crawls into your system while your guard is down

"From Hegel to Ali G, respect is the cornerstone of human exchange."
-The ICA there, marvellous.

I find it impossible to tell whether Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital is actually any good, coming as it does so soon after another TV series about a spooky hospital by a horror novelist. I think I'd rather just watch a programme in which Andrew McCarthy is a maverick neurologist who doesn't play by the rules. Except without any of the yucky operations.

Saw my first, and the second ever, episode of Yes, Minister last night. Amusing enough in its way but I suspect if I were in politics I'd loathe it for the same reasons I loathe The Office. And then afterwards it's Newsnight and I realise that it really isn't funny, because it's too true. All anyone in 'power' does is preside, not govern, and politicians spend most of their time engaged in doomed attempts at damage limitation. Great responsibility without great power. I'd feel sorry for the poor b@st@rds except that if I can realise that before going in, they should have done too. To understand all is not to forgive all, it's to damn those with no excuse for not understanding all the more thoroughly.

I was meant to be at capitalflash's birthday last night but simply didn't have the social energy, for which I apologise. And I find myself oddly lacking in enthusiasm for social activity in general. Seasonal fluctuations in the Barry force, perhaps.

I'm really beginning to miss my angry icons.

The key factor in many of the things that most annoy me at the moment is an unjustified sense of entitlement. Promoters who think their night naturally deserves a listing in every magazine. Tramps and thieves who think they have a right to other people's money. Drivers who think they have a right to go through red lights.

In a sense I'm no better, because I think that morally I have the right to gut all of the above like fish. But at least I'm pragmatist enough to realise that the logistics are not currently in place.